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DR.    GILMAN'S 

INTRODUCTORY    LECTURE. 

DELIVERED  NOV.   6,  1840. 


INTRODUCTORY  ADDRESS 


STUDENTS  IN  MEDICINE 


COLLEGE  OF  PHYSICIANS  AND  SURGEONS 


UNIVERSITY 


OF    THE    STATE    OF    NEW-YORK. 


Delivered  Nov.  6,  1840. 


By  CHANDLER  R.  GILMAN,  M.  D. 

LECTURER  ON  OBSTETRICS  AND  THE  DISEASES  OF  WOMEN  AND  CHILDREN. 


NEW-YORK: 
PUBLISHED   BY   THE   STUDENTS. 

1840. 


H.   LtJDWIG,   PRINTER, 

72,  Vesey-street,  N.Y. 


New- York,  November  7,  1840. 
Sir, 

At  a  meeting  of  the  Students  of  the  College  of  Physicians  and 
Surgeons  of  New- York,  held  at  the  College,  on  Friday,  Nov.  6,  1840,  it 
was,  on  motion  of  Mr.  Hull,  unanimously 

Resolved,  That  a  Committee  of  four,  with  the  Chairman  and  Secre- 
tary, be  appointed  to  wait  on  you,  to  request  a  copy  of  your  very  appro- 
priate Introductory  Address  for  publication. 

The  Committee  take  more  than  ordinary  pleasure  in  being  permitted 
to  communicate  to  you  the  wishes  of  the  class,  viewing  as  they  do  the 
chaste,  flowing,  and  scholar-like  diction  of  your  Introductory  Address, 
together  with  its  agreeable  delivery,  as  emblematical  of  the  excellence 
of  the  ensuing  course  of  lectures.  That  you  may  succeed  (as  doubtless 
you  will)  in  giving  full  and  entire  satisfaction  to  the  Trustees  and  Fa- 
culty of  the  College,  as  well  as  to  the  Students  generally,  is  the  sincere 
desire  of  Your  obedient  servants, 

A.  Cooke  Hull,  "| 

Richard  H.  Cooltdge,      1    ~ 
Henry  F.   Quackenbos,    \  Com^ttee. 
Fred.  J.  Painter,  J 

Wai.   R.  Wagstaff,   Chairman, 
Philip  A.  Davenport,   Secretary. 
To  Chandler  R.  Gilman,  M.  D. 

Lecturer  on  Obstetrics,  &c. 


New- York,  November  9,  1840. 
Gentlemen, 

Your  letter,  communicating  the  proceedings  of  a 
meeting  of  the  Students  of  the  College  of  Physicians  and  Surgeons,  held 
Nov.  6,  1840,  was  duly  received. 

The  lecture,  of  which  you  speak  in  such  flattering  terms,  was  prepar- 
ed simply  and  solely  to  afford  you  pleasure,  and,  if  possible,  profit.  If 
your  pleasure  in  it  will  be  increased  by  its  publication,  it  is  entirely  at 
your  service. 

For  the  very  kind  manner  in  which  you  wish  me  success  in  my  new 
undertaking,  be  pleased  to  accept  my  cordial  thanks.  Be  assured  that 
no  efforts  of  mine  shall  be  wanting  to  realize  your  flattering  anticipa- 
tions.    I  remain,  Gentlemen, 

Yours,  truly, 

Chandler  R.  Gilaian. 
To  Messrs.  A.  Cooke  Hull,  "i 

"         "      Richard  H.  Coolidge,       „ 

»      Henry  F.  Quackenbos,  >  Committee, 
"         "      Fred.  J.  Painter, 
"         "      Wai.  R.  Wagstaff,   Chairman. 
*•        "      Philip  A.  Davenport,  Secretary. 


INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE. 

MR.  PRESIDENT— GENTLEMEN  : 

By  the  kind  confidence  of  the  Trustees,  I 
appear  before,  you  this  clay  as  lecturer  on  Ob- 
stetrics and  the  Diseases  of  Women  and  Chil- 
dren in  this   College. 

It  is  with  no  ordinary  satisfaction  that  I  find 
myself  thus  honourably  associated  with  such  a 
faculty  as  ours,  among  whom  I  recognise  early 
and  highly  valued  professional  friends  ;  and  for 
this  honour  I  beg  leave  to  offer  to  you,  Mr.  Pre- 
sident, and  to  the  Board  of  Trustees,  my  cordial 
and  hearty  thanks. 

Thanks,  however,  do  but  poorly  pay  our  obli- 
gations. I  shall  strive  most  unremittingly  to 
afford  to  you,  sir,  and  to  the  Board,  the  only  re- 
turn for  your  kindness,  which,  as  I  am  assured 
you  desire,  by  a  faithful,  diligent  and  zealous 
performance  of  the  duties  you  have  assigned 
me. 

With  the  importance  of  those  duties  to  the  insti- 
tution over  which  you  so  worthily  preside,  and  to 
the  profession  in  which  we  all  delight  to  labour, 
I  am  deeply  impressed,  and  in  this  view  of  them, 
sensible  of  my  own  limited  fitness,  I  receive  the 


honourable  and  responsible  office  you  have  con- 
ferred upon  me,  with  a  pride  which  is  deeply 
mingled  with  humility. 

The  first  duty  which  devolves  upon  a  public 
teacher  of  medicine  is,  by  an  introductory  ad- 
dress, to  endeavour  to  create  in  the  minds  of  his 
pupils  such  an  interest  in  the  subject  of  his 
course  as  will  excite  them  to  a  zealous  and  per- 
severing study  of  it.  That  such  incitements 
to  exertion  are  necessary,  will  be  doubted  by 
no  one  who  is  acquainted  with  the  amount  of 
the  labour  required,  with  the  discouraging  and 
often  disgusting'  circumstances  under  which  that 
labour  is  to  be  performed,  and  the  number  and 
character  of  the  obstacles  to  be  overcome,  be- 
fore the  student  can  tread  even  the  threshold  of 
his  profession.  And  do  his  difficulties  cease, 
are  his  labours  to  be  remitted,  when  that  thresh- 
hold  is  passed?  Far  otherwise.  These  early 
difficulties  are  soon  forgotten,  but  it  is  in  the 
countless  cares,  anxieties,  fatigues  and  annoy- 
ances, which  beset  the  practitioner  of  physic, 
from  the  first  moment,  when  a  young  graduate, 
he  sits  in  his  office  waiting  and  hoping  for  busi- 
ness, to  the  last,  when  an  old  man,  his  strength 
exhausted  by  fatigue,  his  health  broken  by  ex- 


posure,  his  spirit  vexed  by  disappointment  or 
worn  by  care,  he  finds  rest  from  his  labours  in 
the  quiet  of  the  grave. 

And  should  encouragement  be  refused,  should 
even  stimulants  to  exertion  be  denied  to  those 
who  are  entering  on  a  course  like  this  1  Sure- 
ly not !  But  where  are  they  to  be  found  1 
Where  are  the  motives  strong  enough  to  tempt 
any  one  to  enter  voluntarily  on  a  youth  of 
study,  only  to  prepare  himself  for  a  life  of 
toil? 

Other  paths  are  open.  The  law  tempts  him 
with  early  opportunities  of  public  display  and 
a  ready  and  early  passage  to  the  high  honours 
of  political  life.  Commerce  pours  out  before 
him  her  golden  treasures,  and  bids  him  remem- 
ber that  his  country  is  one  whose  merchants 
are  princes.  Or  if  he  rather  choose  a  calm 
and  quiet  course  through  life,  agriculture  points 
to  her  waving  fields  and  yellow  harvests,  her 
green  retreats  and  sunny  glades,  and  says — 
"  Happiness  is  here" 

And  what  has  medical  science  to  offer  that 
she  should  enter  into  a  competition  with  these  ? 
She  cannot  promise  opportunities  of  public  dis- 
play,  for   hers    are   emphatically   private,    and 


often  confidential  duties.  She  cannot  even 
speak  of  political  honours,  for  no  profession  is, 
from  its  very  nature,  more  alien  from  political 
strife  than  the  medical.  Can  she  rival  com- 
merce in  the  golden  gains  by  which  her  vo- 
taries are  repaid  1  Too  often  is  the  physician, 
for  his  toil,  his  care,  his  time,  his  skill  —  shall 
I  say  repaid  ?  —  were  it  not  better  to  say  in- 
sulted 1  —  a  pittance  which  a  day-labourer 
would  scarce  envy.  Medicine  cannot  name 
peaceful  ease  and  quiet  contentment  among 
her  attractions ;  but  in  their  stead  must  threat- 
en, never-ending  toils, — anxieties  to  which  the 
most  stoical  cannot  remain  insensible,  nor  the 
most  patient  always  endure  without  repining. 

And  has  she  nothing  more  to  offer  to  her 
adorers'?  Is  toil,  is  care,  is  wasted  strength, 
is  broken  health,  is  poverty,  is  premature 
old  age,  the  only  dowry  she  brings?  Not 
so.  With  poverty  she  brings  a  wealth,  with 
care  a  happiness.  She  can  make  the  poorest 
of  us  rich  in  the  consciousness  of  well-perform- 
ed duties,  and  our  most  anxious  hours  happy 
in  the  luxury  of  doing  good. 

These,  students  of  medicine,  are  the  rich  re- 
wards by  which  you  are  to  be  excited  to  dili- 


gence  and  zeal  in  the  study  of  your  profes- 
sion. They  belong,  however,  alike  to  each 
and  every  branch  of  the  healing  art. 

And  has  not  the  particular  department  in 
which  I  shall  have  the  honour  to  direct  your 
efforts  its  peculiar  attractions.  Its  require- 
ments are  high :  to  thorough  knowledge  of 
general  principles  must  be  added  a  perfect  fa- 
miliarity with  minute  details ;  and  these,  in 
their  application  to  practice,  must  be  regulated 
and  guided  by  a  presence  of  mind,  which  no 
sudden  danger  can  disturb,  a  fertility  of  re- 
course which  no  emergencies  can  exhaust,  and 
above  all,  a  patience,  on  which  neither  time 
nor  fatigue,  nor  the  repinings  of  friends,  nor, 
hardest  of  all  to  resist,  the  entreaties  of  suffer- 
ing, can  produce  any  effect. 

These  are  the  requirements  of  Obstetric 
medicine  —  her  toils  are  not  less,  and  her  anx- 
ieties are  greater.  And  has  she  no  special  re- 
ward, no  peculiar  prize  for  her  votaries  ?  She 
has.  Their  toils  are  in  the  cause  of  woman, 
and  woman's  ardent  gratitude  and  woman's  un- 
failing confidence  are  their  abundant  reward. 
It  is  our  happy  lot  to  repay  in  part  the  incal- 
culable debt  which  man  owes  to  woman  —  to 


10 

woman,  too  olten  the  sport  of  his  wayward 
passions,  by  his  licentiousness  made  a  play- 
thing, by  his  brutality  a  slave.  But  when  left 
to  the  guidance  of  her  own  purer  and  better 
nature,  ever  ready  to  take  that  place  by  the 
side  of  man  which  their  common  Creator  as- 
signed to  her,  and  become  his  best  friend — often 
his  wisest,  because  always  his  most  disinter- 
ested, adviser ;  in  short,  to  become  what  God 
himself  has  called  her,  a  help  mete  for  man. 

There  have  not,  I  know,  been  wanting,  in 
every  age,  and  there  are  not  wanting  in  our 
own,  those  who  would  willingly  lure  woman 
from  this  her  good  and  happy  sphere,  to  make 
her  man's  rival.  But  such  efforts  are  too  di- 
rectly in  opposition  to  the  nature  of  woman, 
ever  to  obtain  more  than  that  temporary  and 
limited  success  which  novelty  insures  to  any 
and  to  everything. 

The  character  and  extent  of  woman's  duties 
are  too  clearly  marked  out  by  Him  wTho  so  ad- 
mirably fitted  her  to  perform  them.  Nor  is 
His  wisdom  and  His  benevolence  less  clearly 
manifested  in  that,  while  by  her  mental  and 
physical  organization  He  has  admirably  adapt- 
ed her  for  one  sphere,  He  has  not  less  distinct- 
ly disqualified   her  for  the  other. 


11 

To  be  convinced  of  this,  we  need  scarce  do 
more  than  cast  a  glance  at  the  external  con- 
figuration of  the  two  sexes.  Woman  man's 
rival !  Mark  the  modest  lowliness  of  her  sta- 
ture. See  the  slender  and  well-rounded  limbs, 
the  small  flexible  joints,  the  smooth  and  polish- 
ed skin,  the  graceful  curve  in  which  every  out- 
line flows.  Now  contrast  this  with  man.  His 
towering  height,  his  broad  chest,  his  large  and 

DO'  '  D 

muscular  limbs,  his  rough  and  hirsute  skin,  the 
angularity  and  squareness  of  his  figure.  In 
woman  everywhere  power  is  sacrificed  to  grace, 
and  strength  to  beauty.  She  is  a  being  to  love 
and  be  beloved,  to  cherish  and  be  cherished  ;  at 
once  to  feel,  and  be  herself  the  object  of  all  the 
soft  and  tender  emotions. 

And  was  this  being,  thus  curiously  and  deli- 
cately framed,  created  to  be  man's  rival?  to 
arrogate  to  herself  his  privileges,  attempt  his 
duties,  or  cope  with  him  in  power?  Not  so. 
His  rival  she  can  never  be;  but  in  her  own 
sphere  she  can  be  something  better  than  his 
equal,  something  nobler  than  his  rival.  Man's 
inferior  in  strength  and  courage,  she  leans  on 
him  for  support,  she  looks  to  him  for  protection. 


12 

But  the  arm  is  strengthened  when  woman  leans 
upon  it,  the  courage  rises  when  woman  is  to 
be  protected. 

Above  all,  and  best  of  all,  to  woman  is  as- 
signed by  her  Creator,  a  chief  and  prevailing 
part  in  the  continuance  of  the  species.  This 
is  her  great  duty.  In  this  all  her  powers,  her 
faculties,  her  feelings  and  her  passions  concen- 
trate. To  this  every  other  duty  and  every 
other  feeling  is  secondary.  The  study  of  her 
mental  and  physical  organization  will  convince 
any  one  that  this  is  the  great  duty  of  woman. 

On  this  subject  I  shall,  at  a  future  day,  en- 
ter into  minute  detail,  for  the  present,  a  slight 
sketch  of  the  peculiarities  of  the  female  sys- 
tem (aside  from  the  strictly  sexual  organs)  will 
suffice. 

We  have  already  spoken  of  her  external 
configuration,  and  contrasted  it  with  that  of 
man.  But  there  is  one  peculiarity,  interesting 
in  this  point  of  view,  to  which  I  did  not  then 
allude.  Not  only  is  woman's  stature  inferior 
to  that  of  man,  but  the  shape  of  the  figure,  as 
a  whole,  is  essentially  and  characteristically 
different.  In  man  we  have  a  broad  chest, 
strongly  formed  shoulders,  with  a  comparative- 


13 

ly  small  pelvis  and  narrow  hips.  In  woman, 
on  the  contrary,  we  have  the  whole  trunk  long- 
er in  proportion  than  that  of  man,  the  chest  nar- 
row, the  shoulders  small,  while  the  hips  are 
large  and  the  pelvis  wide.  By  this  peculiarity 
of  formation  alone,  and  if  there  were  no  other 
structural  differences,  man  would  possess  great 
advantages  in  the  performance  of  every  variety 
of  labour,  and  in  the  power  of  steady,  rapid, 
and  vigorous  progression.  For  all  of  which 
advantages  woman  has  compensation  only  in 
the  wide  capacious  pelvis,  enabling  her  to  bear 
her  precious  and  well-loved  burthen  in  safety. 
But  woman's  duty  to  her  offspring  is  not  alone 
to  carry  in  her  bosom  the  germ  of  the  future 
being';  she  is  to  afford  it  nutriment  in  all  that 
mysterious  progress  by  which  a  vesicle,  so  mi- 
nute that  the  unassisted  eye  can  scarce  detect 
it,  becomes  a  highly  organized,  living,  moving 
human  being. 

For  this  purpose,  and  to  supply  the  prodi- 
gious drain  it  makes  upon  her  fluids,  the  or- 
gans of  woman  are  everywhere  pervaded  by 
cellular  texture  which,  while,  its  regular  dis- 
tribution adds  much  to  the  beauty  of  her  figure, 
serves  to  retain  in  its  minute  areola  the  fluids 


14 

which,  at  the  call  of  nature,  are  to  contribute 
to  the  sustenance  of  the  new  being- ;  and  these 
nutrient  fluids  are  preserved  from  waste  by  the 
very  limited  degree  in  which  exhalation  is  per- 
formed through  her  fine  and  delicate  skin.  It 
is  by  this  arrangement  that  women,  even  the 
weakest  of  them,  are  enabled  to  support  the 
long-continued  and  profuse  drains  upon  their 
system,  which  are  caused  by  gestation  and  lac- 
tation, while  the  dryer,  though  more  vigorous 
system  of  man,  soon  succumbs  under  a  much 
smaller  degree  of  any  similar  exhausting  pro- 
cess. 

This  abundant  supply  of  nutriment  is  all 
that  the  child  requires  from  his  mother  during 
uterine  life,  for  during  that  time  his  security  is 
for  the  most  part  bound  up  in  her  own,  and 
may  be  made  dependent  on  her  own  instinct 
of  self-preservation.  But  the  period  of  foetal 
life  once  passed,  the  child  once  born,  how  va- 
rious and  how  great  are  his  demands  upon  a 
mother's  love.  Not  only  must  her  breast  afford 
him  his  supply  of  nutriment,  but  upon  her  bo- 
som he  seeks  his  needful  rest,  it  is  to  him  at 
once  a  fountain  of  life  and  a  bed  of  repose. 
Upon  his  mother's  watchful   care   his  life  de- 


15 

pends  at  almost  every  moment  of  his  early 
existence.  Her  eye  must  be  ever  upon  him, 
her  ear  ever  open  to  his  cry. 

These  kind  offices,  so  essential  to  the  ex- 
istence of  the  new-created  being,  have  not 
been,  by  the  all-wise  Creator,  left  to  depend 
on  the  moral  sense,  on  the  feeling  of  duty,  on 
expediency,  or  even  on  that  ordinary  parental 
affection  which  is  common  to  the  two  sexes. 
An  impulse  to  perform  them  is  implanted  deep 
in  the  heart  of  woman.  It  is  a  part  of  her- 
self, a  necessity  of  her  existence. 

Nor  is  it,  as  I  conceive,  difficult  to  trace 
much  of  this  moral  nature  to  the  peculiar  phy- 
sical organization  on  which  it  depends.  In 
woman,  an  inferiority  of  the  locomotive  appa- 
ratus, the  apparatus  of  action,  of  physical  la- 
bour, is  apparent  in  all  its  parts.  The  bones 
are  small  and  slender,  smooth,  or  nearly  so, 
and  capable,  from  their  structure,  of  resisting 
only  a  very  moderate  amount  of  violence. 
The  muscular  system,  throughout  its  whole 
extent,  has  the  same  general  character,  deli- 
cate in  texture,  small  in  size,  endowed  with 
great  mobility  and  little  power ;  but  it  is  in 
the  nervous   system  that  the  peculiarities   of 


16 

the  female  are  most  marked  and  have  the 
most  prevailing  influence  on  her  moral  nature. 
The  great  nervous  centre,  the  brain,  is  both 
absolutely  and  relatively  smaller  in  woman 
than  in  man.  But  the  nerves  (the  branches 
from  that  mighty  root)  pervade  her  structure 
to  a  much  greater  extent,  and  bear  a  much 
larger  proportion  to  the  rest  of  her  body  than 
they  do  to  that  of  man.  Of  the  peculiarities 
in  the  intimate  structure  of  this  system,  and  of 
the  organs  of  sense,  on  which  the  different  de- 
grees of  perfection  in  which  their  functions 
are  performed,  depend,  we  are  profoundly  ig- 
norant, and  cannot  in  this  respect  make  a 
comparison  between  the   two  sexes. 

But  if  we  adopt  for  them  another  mode  of 
study,  and  without  attempting  to  establish  dif- 
ferences of  intimate  structure,  which  are  too 
minute  for  our  means  of  investigation,  content 
ourselves  with  observing  these  organs  in  their 
exercise,  who  does  not  know  that  quickness 
of  sight,  nicety  of  touch,  and  delicacy  of  all 
the  senses,  are  the  acknowledged  attributes  of 
woman? 

Let  us  now  make  a  brief  summary  of  the 
peculiarities  in  the  organization  of  woman.    We 


17 

have  first  an  abundant  supply  of  soft  and  semi- 
fluid cellular  tissue  ;  we  have  a  muscular  and 
locomotive  apparatus  possessing  great  mobili- 
ty with  but  little  power,  a  nervous  system, 
wide-spread  and  largely  developed,  affording 
to  every  part  an  abundant  supply  of  its  in- 
fluence, and  giving  to  every  fibre  the  highest 
degree  of  susceptibility  and  irritibility ;  lastly, 
we  have  organs  of  sense,  whose  functions  are 
performed  with  a  delicacy  and  quickness  to 
which  those  of  man  are  strangers.  Now  with 
such  an  organization  what  mental  traits  are 
likely  to  be  associated  1 

The  abundance  of  the  cellular  tissue,  by 
rendering  the  whole  fabric  more  soft  and  deli- 
cate, contributes  to  impress  a  like  character 
of  softness  and  delicacy  on  the  mind ;  the 
weakness  of  her  apparatus  of  action,  while  it 
unfits  her  for  powerful  effort  or  long-continued 
exertion,  has  a  necessary  tendency  to  give  to 
her  mind  a  character  of  non-resistance,  of  pas- 
sivity, which,  under  favourable  influences,  is 
developed  and  modified  into  that  habit  of  self- 
sacrifice,  that  readiness  to  concede,  that  total 
absence   of  selfishness,   which  is  the  best  trait 

in  the  character  of  the  best  women.     The  full 
3 


18 

development  of  the  nervous  system  and  its  pre- 
dominance over  the  cerebral  centre,  gives  to 
every  part  a  susceptibility  so  acute,  that  the 
impressions  made,  and  the  sensations  excited, 
are  always  of  the  most  vehement  character ; 
and  these  being  less  under  the  control  of  the 
brain,  woman  becomes,  from  the  very  necessity 
of  her  nature,  a  creature  rather  of  impulse  than 
of  reflection,  of  feeling  than  of  thought,  of 
passion  than  of  reason.  Her  extreme  and  easi- 
ly excited  sensibility,  when  united  with  the 
gentleness  and  softness  of  her  nature,  give  to 
her  mind  a  proneness  to  compassion,  to  pity, 
and  to  tenderness.  And  such  should  be  the 
mental  character  of  a  mother.  For  to  what 
other  feelings  than  those  of  pity,  of  compas- 
sion, and  of  tenderness,  can  that  most  helpless 
of  all  beings,  a  new-born  infant,  appeal.  His 
powers,  his  faculties,  his  organs  of  sense,  are 
all  undeveloped ;  the  lines  of  humanity  are 
scarce  yet  traced  upon  his  countenance  ;  he 
can  have  no  advocate  but  his  own  utter  help- 
lessness. The  first  offices  of  kindness  to  him 
must  be  prompted  rather  by  compassion  than 
by  affection  ;  he  must  be  pitied  before  he  can 
be  loved.     And  well  and  wisely  hath  the  Fa- 


19 

Iher  of  all  provided  for  this  the  frailest  of  his 
works,  when  he  consigned  it  to  woman's  prompt 
compassion,  to  woman's  unfailing  and  exhaust- 
less  tenderness  ! 

Such,  students  of  medicine,  is  a  sketch  of 
woman  and  her  peculiar  adaptation  to  her  most 
important  office.  It  has  been  brief,  for  the 
time  would  not  admit,  nor  the  occasion  justify, 
any  amplification  of  detail ;  imperfect,  for  who 
will  say  that  he  is  able  to  do  justice  to  the 
theme  ? 

vThis  interesting  being,  in  the  hour  of  her 
extremity,  will  call  on  you  for  aid.  She  ap- 
peals to  the  tenderest,  the  holiest  sympathies 
of  your  nature.  She  is  about  to  become  a 
mother — Oh,  that  sweet  word,  mother !  Is  there 
a  heart  in  any  bosom  here  that  does  not  throb 
thick  and  fast  at  the  sound?  Is  there  one 
among  you  who  needs  to  have  counted  up 
before  him  the  infinite  debt  he  owes  to  his  own 
mother  ? 

Look  back  on  your  past  life — back,  far 
back,  to  childhood,  if  it  be  possible,  to  infancy. 
By  your  cradle's  side  she  kept  her  patient  vigil. 
Childhood's  sorrows  and  joys,  the  rain  and 
sunshine  of  life's  April  day,  were  soothed  and 


20 

shared  by  mother's  ready  sympathy.  And  as 
your  life  advanced,  has  not  her  gentle  influ- 
ence been,  like  a  guardian  angel,  ever  present, 
to  check  the  impulses  to  evil,  and  lure  you  on- 
ward in  the  path  of  duty.  And  oh,  happy  are 
they  to  whom,  amid  the  cares  and  toils  of  man- 
hood, the  Divine  mercy  has  vouchsafed  a  con- 
tinuance of  the  blessed  influence  of  a  mother's 
gentle  wisdom.  But  there  are  those  of  us  to 
whom  that  great  blessing  has  been  denied,  to 
whom  mother  is  altogether  a  word  of  memory. 
Yet  to  us — perhaps  to  us  chiefly  —  it  is* a 
holy  and  a  blessed  word,  recalling,  as  it 
does,  the  thousand  tender  and  grateful  re- 
collections of  days  gone  by.  To  us,  nay,  to 
all,  woman  will  not  appeal  in  vain  when  she 
bids  us,  if  we  love  a  living,  or  cherish  the 
memory  of  a  dead  mother,  to  give  aid  and  suc- 
cour to  her  in  this  her  hour  of  trial,  "  that 
hour  of  perilous  hope,"  as  it  was  beautifully 
called  by  one*  who,  alas  !  did  not  survive  it. 
If  aid  and  succour  be  afforded  skilfully,  you 
may  hope  that,  after  a  few  brief  hours  of  suf- 
fering, all  will  be  well — the  woman's  agonies 

*  Princess  Charlotte  of  England. 


21 

all  forgotten  in  the  mother's  joy.  And  the  hus- 
band too,  will  he  not  bless  you,  when  all  the 
husband's  anxieties  and  fears  are  banished,  lost, 
forgotten — in  the  proud  joy  of  being  a  father  1 

This  issue  may  be  hoped  for,  but  is  there 
not  another  that  must  be  feared?  The  suf- 
fering, the  apprehension,  the  alarm,  the  con- 
fusion, the  tumult,  all  are  passed.  Silence 
reigns  in  the  lately  noisy  and  agitated  house- 
hold;  but  it  is  the  stillness  of  despair !  The 
bird  of  death,  that  hovered  so  far  off  that  scarce 
the  eye  of  apprehension  could  catch  his  figure, 
a  speck  in  the  heaven  of  hope,  has  made  his 
fearful  stoop,  and  now  in  triumph  he  riots  o'er 
his  prey.  He  who  hoped  to  have  been  a  fa- 
ther is  now  a  lonely  and  despairing  man,  and 
she  who  should  have  been  a  mother,  is,  for 
this  world,   nothing. 

All  the  hopes  and  joys  that  clustered  round 
the  once  happy  home,  now  take  their  flight. 
We  can  almost  fancy,  that,  like  the  priests  of 
Jerusalem,  when  the  guardian  angels  of  the  tern- 
pie  left  their  charge,  we  hear  the  rustling  pinions 
of  the  departing  host,  and  their  wailing  cry, 

"  Let  us  go  hence," 

I   will   not   ask   you,    students    of  medicine, 


22 

which  of  these  two  pictures  you  would  wish 
to  see  realized  in  your  own  experience.  If 
the  question  were  not  a  mere  mockery,  it  would 
be  something  worse.  But  let  me  remind  you, 
that  hopes  and  fears  are  idle,  when  they  are 
not   efficient  stimulants  to   zeal  and  industry. 

Whatever  may  be  your  hopes,  your  wishes, 
or  your  fears,  they  will  not  influence  the  re- 
sult. Which  of  these  two  pictures  will  be 
most  frequently  realized  in  your  experience  — 
whether,  in  her  hour  of  peril,  you  are  to  be 
to  suffering  woman  the  minister  of  good  or 
evil — whether  you  will  bring  to  her  and  to 
her  offspring  life  or  death,  and  to  those  around 
her  happiness  or  misery,  will  depend  mainly  on 
the  manner  in  which  the  next  two  or  three 
years  of  your  lives  are  spent.  Improve  them, 
and  all  will  be  well.  A  career  of  labour,  but 
of  honourable  and  useful  labour,  is  before  you. 
Nor  will  your  labour  fail  of  its  appropriate  re- 
ward. True,  your  name  may  not  fill  the  trump 
of  Fame,  nor  be  written  on  any  blood-stained 
page  of  your  country's  history,  but  it  will  be 
graven  on  the  hearts,  it  will  live  among  the 
cherished  memories  of  those  to  whom  you  have 
been  God's  minister  for  good. 


23 


It  is  but  a  few  years  since  such  a  one  lived 
and  laboured  here  among  us,  and  well  and 
kindly  is  he  remembered  ;  for  could  we  forget 
his  venerable  form,  his  mild,  benignant  coun- 
tenance, his  calm  and  courteous  bearing,  yet 
would  the  ripe  wisdom,  the  well-digested  ex- 
perience, above  all,  the  unfailing  kindness,  the 
perfect  uprightness  in  all  the  relations  of  life, 
which  distinguished  the  late  Wright  Post  of 
this  city,  live  in  the  hearts  of  those  who  had  the 
advantage  and  the  pleasure  of  being  in  any 
way  associated  with  him.  His  was  a  life  use- 
ful and  honourable,  a  death  peaceful  and  happy, 
a  memory  cherished  by  the  wise,  and  blessed 
by  the  good. 

A  career  like  his  may  now  be  opening  to 
some  of  you ;  but  it  will  only  be  to  those  who 
from  the  first,  from  this  very  hour,  resolve  to 
neglect  no  opportunity  of  professional  advance- 
ment, to  allow  no  moment  of  time  to  escape 
them  unimproved,  in  short,  to  shrink  from  no 
amount  of  needful  labour. 

But  should  you  choose  another  and  a  baser 
course,  to  what  can  a  youth  of  neglected  oppor- 
tunities and  wasted  hours  lead  ?  To  a  life  of 
insignificance  ?    Of  uselessness  ?     This  is   not 


24 

all.  The  ill-instructed  physician  is  not  a  mere 
negation  of  all  that  is  good,  a  mere  drone  in 
the  political  hive.  He  goes  forth  armed  with  a 
power  which  he  must  exert.  It  is  not,  as  I 
conceive,  putting  the  case  too  strongly,  to  say 
that  he  goes  forth  God's  minister  for  evil,  God's 
scourge,  his  curse  upon  those  whose  evil  fate 
leads  them  to  employ  him. 

Students  of  medicine,  these  two  courses  of 
life  are  now  placed  as  alternatives  before  each 
one  of  you — to  be  useful,  to  be  loved  and 
cherished  in  life,  to  be  honoured  and  mourned 
in  death ;  or  to  be,  on  the  other  hand,  not  sim- 
ply a  thing  of  nought,  but  a  thing  of  evil  —  not 
simply  a  cumberer  of  the  ground,  but  a  poisoner 
of  the  soil  —  not  simply  a  broken  staff,  but  a 
spear  piercing  where  it  should  support.  Be- 
tween these  two  you  are  now  to  choose.  If  a 
prize  like  this  to  be  gained,  and  a  fate  like  that 
to  be  avoided,  afford  not  a  sufficient  stimulus 
to  your  industry,  no  words  nor  thoughts  of 
mine  can  supply  one. 


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